diff --git a/src/llama-mmap.cpp b/src/llama-mmap.cpp
index 6047c10616..045489df7a 100644
--- a/src/llama-mmap.cpp
+++ b/src/llama-mmap.cpp
@@ -323,8 +323,11 @@ struct llama_file::impl {
         off_t offset_from_alignment = offset - aligned_offset;
         size_t bytes_to_read = (offset_from_alignment + size + alignment - 1) & ~(alignment - 1);
 
+        // stage through a bounded buffer, so that a large tensor is not held in memory twice while it loads
+        const size_t buffer_size = std::min<size_t>(bytes_to_read, LLAMA_DIRECT_IO_BUFFER_SIZE);
+
         void * raw_buffer = nullptr;
-        int ret = posix_memalign(&raw_buffer, alignment, bytes_to_read);
+        int ret = posix_memalign(&raw_buffer, alignment, buffer_size);
         if (ret != 0) {
             throw std::runtime_error(format("posix_memalign failed with error %d", ret));
         }
@@ -335,10 +338,20 @@ struct llama_file::impl {
         std::unique_ptr<void, aligned_buffer_deleter> buffer(raw_buffer);
 
         seek(aligned_offset, SEEK_SET);
-        read_raw_unsafe(buffer.get(), bytes_to_read);
 
-        uintptr_t actual_data = reinterpret_cast<uintptr_t>(buffer.get()) + offset_from_alignment;
-        memcpy(dest, reinterpret_cast<void *>(actual_data), size);
+        size_t skip   = offset_from_alignment;
+        size_t copied = 0;
+        for (size_t done = 0; done < bytes_to_read; ) {
+            const size_t n = std::min(buffer_size, bytes_to_read - done);
+            read_raw_unsafe(buffer.get(), n);
+
+            const size_t count = std::min(n - skip, size - copied);
+            memcpy(reinterpret_cast<char *>(dest) + copied, reinterpret_cast<char *>(buffer.get()) + skip, count);
+
+            copied += count;
+            skip    = 0;
+            done   += n;
+        }
     }
 
     void read_raw(void * ptr, size_t len) {
diff --git a/src/llama-mmap.h b/src/llama-mmap.h
index e75945286d..6c6393d573 100644
--- a/src/llama-mmap.h
+++ b/src/llama-mmap.h
@@ -6,6 +6,9 @@
 #include <vector>
 #include <cstdio>
 
+// staging buffer size for direct I/O reads, 64MB works well for NVMe drives
+#define LLAMA_DIRECT_IO_BUFFER_SIZE (64 * 1024 * 1024)
+
 struct llama_file;
 struct llama_mmap;
 struct llama_mlock;
diff --git a/src/llama-model-loader.cpp b/src/llama-model-loader.cpp
index 43c396f15a..6cc0b20288 100644
--- a/src/llama-model-loader.cpp
+++ b/src/llama-model-loader.cpp
@@ -1516,8 +1516,7 @@ bool llama_model_loader::load_all_data(
     }
 
     // Buffer size: balance between memory usage and I/O efficiency
-    // 64MB works well for NVMe drives
-    const size_t buffer_size = alignment != 1 ? 64 * 1024 * 1024 + 2 * alignment : 1 * 1024 * 1024;
+    const size_t buffer_size = alignment != 1 ? LLAMA_DIRECT_IO_BUFFER_SIZE + 2 * alignment : 1 * 1024 * 1024;
 
     std::vector<ggml_backend_buffer_t> host_buffers;
     std::vector<ggml_backend_event_t> events;